Premium: On Top of the Octagonal

A Group of 18- and 20-Year-Olds Combine on Pepi's Two Goals to Lead USMNT Past Jamaica and Overtake Mexico in the Standings

Brenden Aaronson, 20, had another good game, including bagging the assist on Ricardo Pepi’s second goal (Artwork by Dan Leydon for Fútbol with Grant Wahl)

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AUSTIN, Texas — He’s had just two games, you keep reminding yourself. The smallest of sample sizes. Not nearly enough to determine much of anything for the long term. But even if you’ve covered the USMNT for more than two decades, you couldn’t help but observe 18-year-old Ricardo Pepi on Thursday night, striding to the postgame podium in his multicolored Jordan 1s, two goals richer in his national team account, and marvel at the sheer excitement of unlimited potential. 

The USMNT has had some good center forwards over the years, true No. 9s, pure strikers: Jozy Altidore and Brian McBride are at the top of the list. (Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan were either withdrawn forwards or wide players who cut inside.) But the hardest thing to find in the modern game is a truly dangerous center forward, the kind who can scare defenses, the kind you can rely on to finish their chances, especially when those opportunities are scarce. World-class and elite too often ring like talk-radio buzzwords, whether the subject is center forwards or NFL quarterbacks—did we ever establish if Joe Flacco was elite?—but it’s fair to say the USMNT has been searching for a world-class No. 9 for, oh, about a century now, and it hasn’t happened yet.

Is Pepi that guy? Who knows? But his two games in a U.S. jersey since deciding to play for Uncle Sam over Mexico have revealed the most exciting U.S. center forward prospect since Altidore was providing game-winning goals against Spain as a 19-year-old at the 2009 Confederations Cup. On Thursday, Pepi scored both goals in the U.S.’s 2-0 win against Jamaica at Q2 Stadium, bringing his two-game total to three strikes—and even more importantly, two straight wins in World Cup qualifying as the U.S. vaulted past Mexico into first place in the tournament.

The Ricardo Pepi Train just another engine (Artwork by Dan Leydon for Fútbol with Grant Wahl)

“We’re all excited. For us, we’re just sitting there and we’re on the train,” U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said about Pepi afterward. “We’re just observing everything that’s happening. It’s amazing. I mean, an 18-year-old gets an opportunity and takes advantage of it. What you see, and what I really like, is that he has this instinct, and it’s really hard to teach that to players. He has an instinct to score.”

In the scoreless first half against Jamaica, the U.S.’s wide players made occasional progress down the field, but they kept sending in abysmal crosses that prevented Pepi from having any serious chances on goal. The American attack sprung to life in the second half, however, displaying the verticality—“get behind, stretch them, play forward quickly”—that Berhalter had been preaching all week leading up to the game. Pepi went 2-for-2 converting his best chances, turning a glancing header from Sergiño Dest’s gorgeous cross past Andre Blake and redirecting the streaking Brenden Aaronson’s low cross into the net with authority. 

“It’s about being patient,” Pepi said afterward. “I feel like if you ask any striker, whenever you don’t touch the ball or whenever you don’t get a lot of opportunities, you’ve just got to stay ready for when you do get a chance.”

Yunus Musah had a terrific second half, barrelling through the middle on the ball (Photo by John Todd/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

It’s remarkable that only 44 days have passed since Pepi declared he would represent the U.S. over Mexico. Born and raised in the El Paso, Texas, area, before joining the FC Dallas academy at age 13, he grew up in a border city between two cultures. But at a time when frontier areas have popularized the phrase ni de aquí, ni de allá (not from here, nor from there), Pepi views it in a slightly different way. He feels embraced by both cultures.

“It’s hard for me to just express that feeling,” he told me recently. “I feel like every day at home, my parents are both Mexican, so I’m dealing with that Mexican culture every day. So it’s hard to just really just say that I’m not from here, but I’m not from over there. And I’m representing the U.S. So my heart is with the U.S., because I’m giving my all to the national team. When I first signed up for that, I was going to defend and protect the badge with my heart. So I am American, but I’m also Mexican because at home I speak Spanish, I eat Mexican food. Everything at home, my culture is Mexican.”

“But being able to defend the country that gave me all my opportunities—not just to me, but to my family—is the best feeling in the world.”

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